What If The Catholic Church Wins?

May 23, 2012

As you probably know, on Monday, a number of organizations affiliated with the Catholic Church, including various organizations that provide secular services, filed suit in several federal courts around the country. The lawsuits maintain that HHS has violated the First Amendment rights of these organizations by requiring them to include within their employees’ health care plans coverage for contraceptive care. Although these coordinated lawsuits smell like a publicity stunt — the lawsuits are premature since the regulation is not in effect — we should consider what the precedential effect would be of a Church victory.

Let’s assume the Supreme Court ultimately upholds the Church’s claim. Let’s project forward a few years. Perhaps we will see this news item:

Washington, D.C., June 29, 2018: The Supreme Court ruled today in Halal Services, Inc. v. O’Connor, that nonprofit organizations affiliated with Islamic institutions need not include within their health care plans coverage for nursing services provided by women to male patients. Writing for a 7-2 court, Chief Justice Roberts stated that, “In Diocese of Fort Wayne v. Sebelius, we unambiguously held that affiliates of religious institutions are not required to provide their employees with health care coverage to which the religious institution objects. Requiring the affiliates to provide such coverage would be a gross violation of religious liberty. This rule applies even when the affiliate provides services that are also provided by secular organizations or businesses. We see no reason to revisit that ruling today.”

The plaintiff, Tim O’Connor, a truck driver for Halal Services, tried to distinguish the ruling in Diocese of Ft. Wayne by arguing that Halal Services — which specializes in providing cosmetics that are consistent with Islamic tradition — does not carry out a function traditionally associated with religious institutions, such as education. Roberts rejected that argument, reasoning that, “It is not for this Court to define the mission of religious institutions. Doing so would constitute an unwarranted intrusion by the government into religious affairs. Halal Services was founded by and is indirectly managed by the Islamic Conference of Michigan. This is sufficient to qualify it as an entity entitled to protection under the Free Exercise Clause.”

Justice Clarence Thomas issued a separate opinion, concurring in part and dissenting in part. Thomas maintained that the federal government has no right to interfere with religious entities, but he also observed that because the United States is a Christian nation, state governments would be free to regulate Halal Services if they desire to do so.

Is this scenario far-fetched? No. Read the complaints that the Church has filed. Distilled to its essential core, the Church’s argument is that any organization affiliated with the Catholic Church that is carrying out the Church’s mission need not comply with health care regulations that would violate the Church’s teachings. Moreover, it is the Church, not the government, which has the right to define the Church’s mission.

The logical conclusion of the Church’s position is that any organization affiliated with a religious institution can impose religious dogma on its employees even when these employees are providing secular services and no matter how ridiculous the dogma. After all, it’s not up to the government to determine whether the claim that using birth control is a mortal sin is more or less absurd than the position that female nurses cannot care for male patients. An organization affiliated with the Jehovah’s Witnesses could presumably refuse to provide coverage for blood transfusions.

The Catholic Church’s invocation of “religious liberty” represents an Orwellian distortion of language. There is no law in the United States compelling the Catholic Church or any religious institution to engage in secular activities and operate retirement homes, lending agencies, retail stores, hospitals, schools, or other secular institutions. Of course, the Church is free to establish stores, retirement communities, hospitals, and schools if it wants to. But if the Church decides to establish organizations to engage in these activities, it must abide by the same rules that govern the operation of other organizations providing secular services.

The First Amendment protects the Church’s right to preach whatever rubbish it wants from its pulpits, and no one is going to force Cardinal Dolan to wear a condom. The First Amendment does not grant the Church the right to impose its dogma on the employees of organizations providing secular services.

Comments:

#1 L.Long (Guest) on Thursday May 24, 2012 at 6:16pm

Legally they do not stand a chance BUT
the legal system is controlled by wimps who are scared of anything religious (opinion only)so when this gets heard they will bend over backward to let them get away with it. The rule does not make them use the stuff but they KNOW that their employees will use it if available cuz the workers know what they want. So since their faith and beliefs don’t really count, the church must control them thru the law and thru the money.

#2 Mark (Guest) on Friday May 25, 2012 at 8:26am

While I agree with this piece, the Catholic Church has an alternate route to a successful claim. The RFRA (religious freedom restoration act) which grants protections beyond the 1st amendment. Essentially, it allows a religious group to claim the law is a significant intrusion on their religious practice, regardless of whether they are being targeted or it’s a broad law, and makes the government show a compelling reason for the rule.

Now, I’m not sure about giving this extra preference to religious vs. other civic groups, but that is still the law. And since the 1st amendment specifically cited religious freedom, as opposed to freedom of conscience, there is grounds for Congress to set up this sort of law. Not that I like such preference, mind you, but it’s not some ahistorical overreach to argue that these certain cultural institutions called ‘religion’ were granted a bit more room to act than everyone else.

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Ronald A. Lindsay is president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown University and his J.D. from the
University of Virginia School of Law. Both his admirers and his detractors agree that his abilities as a philosopher match his skills as a lawyer. Among
other works, he is the author of Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths, and Dogmas (Prometheus 2008) and the entry on “Euthanasia” for
the International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley Blackwell 2013). His next book, The Necessity of Secularism: Why God Can’t Tell Us What To Do, will be published by Pitchstone Publishing, with a release date of
November 2014.